The World Of Carre

In the Hermès universe, the scarf or carré is not just an accessory-it's a style icon with its own dedicated creative and design studio

- Caroline Suganda

Listening to Cecile Pesce talk about colour is revelatory. Unlike you and I who see different shades as mere visual cues, the play of hues is a love language for the Frenchwoman. As Pesce puts it poetically, “Colour is a language that we learn to master. We start by learning to compose sentences and inventing new expressions, and then we tell stories.”

There’s no other fashion house that takes its silk category as seriously as Hermès. In its Lyon workshop, more than 800 artisans master all aspects of expertise when it comes to creating those silk scarves, from weaving to finishing and everything in between. This also includes research in innovations, such as the current double-sided carré, or machine-washable silk scarf.

Pesce is creative director just for its women’s silk, and her role mainly involves playing with colours — extensively. To put this in perspective, it’s important to know that since the very beginning, the design of the famous Hermès silk carré (meaning “square” in French has always been the result of a collaboration between artists and illustrators, and today, over 300 such designs from around the world have enriched its archives. It is also the only Hermès object to be signed with the name of its designer.

Once the design is finalised, Pesce, the colour magician, brings it to life, swapping baby blue with a darker shade, making the green more transparent or making the decision to leave the background untouched. “It is like composing a new phrase,” says Pesce. “Changing one word can alter the meaning of an expression, and the same goes for a colour variant.”